Charlton Athletic boss: Dons striker was signed because I expected Magennis to go
BY RICHARD CAWLEY
Charlton caretaker boss Lee Bowyer says that the capture of Lyle Taylor on a free transfer from AFC Wimbledon was because he knew Josh Magennis was set to leave.
Northern Ireland international Magennis signed for Bolton Wanderers yesterday on a two-year deal.
And Bowyer has outlined his plans to strengthen his frontline, as well as admitting he had forward planned that Magennis would be leaving.
Bowyer said: “I’d spoken to the owner and said there was a chance Josh will go, because Bolton came in for him in January. If that was the case, why would they not try again ahead of a full season? I needed to bring in a striker and that’s where Lyle came in. It was like a straight swap.
“If Josh had gone the first week of the summer and we had brought in Lyle then everyone would be saying: ‘Flipping hell, that’s good’. But we had to bring him in first because he was on a free and other clubs wanted to take him – and he had better offers.
“We have got Igor Vetokele as well, I never thought I was going to get him. I thought he would go back out on loan to a club or we would sell him. He is like a new signing to me. I never thought for one second he would play for us.”
Bowyer will look to add another attacking player before the window shuts.
“We have to bring in someone who is a bit more versatile – it won’t be another out-and-out striker. It will be someone who can play that position like Karlan Grant – out wide or up top.
“Otherwise I could have four strikers for two positions.
“I’ll have two main strikers in the building, Karlan can play there and Reeco [Hackett-Fairchild] did well in the first half on Saturday and is maybe someone we can fall back on if things get really bad. I’d like to think our bad luck with injuries has gone already.”
IMAGE BY KEITH GILLARD
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What happened with the Karlan Reeco court case? Not seen anymore.
I think Lee bowyer is in for a shock I still don’t think we have enough up front and will not score enough goals and to be honest our back line for all he says still has not got enough pace and can be cut open too easy also take away our starting 11 not much back up hope they prove me wrong would love us to be up there challenging for top 2